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Apple Breakfast Cake from AB&P

April 10, 2011 - 1:58pm

dmsnyder

Apple Breakfast Cake from AB&P

Apple Breakfast Cake

I happened upon the formula for “Apple Breakfast Cake” while browsing Michel Suas' Advanced Bread and Pastry looking for something or other I've now forgotten. My wife loves cakes that are loaded with fresh fruit, and the photo in the book looked pretty wonderful. I was also thinking about the fabulously delicious Coffee Cake we were served for breakfast several mornings at SFBI, and hoped this cake might be as good.

I'm not a cake baker. My one attempt at a genoise resulted in a wonderful, eggy-flavored, dry and crumbly, 8-inch cookie. That was 20 or 25 years ago. I have recovered sufficiently from that traumatic humiliation to be able to consider baking something called a “cake” without panic. The process for Suas' Apple Breakfast Cake had only one step that seemed like it might present a challenge, so I decided to make it.

Ingredients

Baker's %

Wt

Eggs

65.38

2 7/8 oz

Sugar

57.69

2 ½ oz

Raisins

57.69

2 ½ oz

Walnut pieces

38.46

1 5/8 oz

Butter, melted

57.69

2 ½ oz

Apples, peeled, diced

384.62

1 lb, ¾ oz

Vanilla extract

1.54

½ tsp

Bread flour (KAF AP)

100

4 3/8 oz

Baking powder

3.46

1 tsp

Salt

1.54

¼ tsp

Total

768.07

2 lb, 1 ½ oz

Notes

I used two whole large eggs.

I rinsed and drained the raisins, although not instructed to do so in the recipe.

Bake at 335ºF (168ºC) for about 45 minutes. (I found my cake needed 60 minutes' baking to be sufficiently browned and firm. This may be because of the added water in the plumped raisins, or just because.)

Allow to cool in the pan for 15 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack or onto a cardboard circle.

Glaze with a flat icing made with powdered sugar, orange juice and orange zest. (I did not make the icing. I just used a light sifting of powdered sugar on each slice, just before serving.)

Suas' description of this pastry is, “This country-style cake is tasty, moist, and dense with apples.” All true. The cake is very moist. The texture is close to that of a moist bread pudding. There is really just enough batter to hold all the apples, raisins and walnuts together. It is rather sweet, but not too sweet. I just dusted slices with powdered sugar and was glad I skipped the icing. The cake is quite rich. I think it makes a nice dessert for any meal or a little something to have with a cup of tea or coffee. I couldn't make a whole breakfast out of it.

This is a lovely cake. It is delicious to eat and has aided in my recovery from the old cake trauma.

Comments

To me this is a lovely cake you have baked. I know exactly where you are coming from. I do enjoy baking some cakes, but my ideas of what really good cake is do not always follow those of the rteal experts! This is the sort of cake I think of as "real". Not sure that is part of the cakemaker's mettle??!!

I have a student who wants to make something very like this tomorrow...and she's talented too! See how that goes then?

Beyond that, much support for two students doing live cake decorating, and one school student to present scones on Tuesday. It's our major Culinary Competition on Tuesday and Wednesday. Meantime, Ive been baking bread and loving our sunny weather all weekend.

We're having a wet (for us), cool Spring. This Winter brought us almost 150% our normal rainfall, which ended a 3-year drought.

It's been nice enough so I have my vegetables and herbs planted. We're working on re-landscaping the back yard, one goal of which is to build another raised bed for vegetables and maybe another for cutting flowers.

Mmmm Mmmm! I wouldn't mind a slice your delicious looking cake right about now. My Mom used to make something similar to the recipe above when we were kids, only she did it in a loaf tin. The same idea of lots of fruit held together with just enough batter to be able to slice it. The fancy layered sponge cakes with buttercream and piping may have lots of wow factor to them but they don't have any advantage in flavour over these types. Great looking cake inside and out!

Looks even tastier than the one in AB&P. Nice choice of apples, I love the way GD cook up, though they loose a little flavor after cooking, I enjoy their baked texture and they are one of my favorites for baking. It's nice to mix baking apples as you have done for their baking textures and flavors. I still have the page for this cake bookmarked, I planned on making it for Johnny Appleseed Day 'Mar. 11' and never got around to it, now after seeing how delicious your cake looks, I wish I would have baked it...well there is always another Johnny Appleseed Day celebrated in Sept. but I don't think I can wait that long!

Very nice looking apple cake, David. I love baking with apples, and just might try this one. It looks like the exterior has a nice crustiness.

As for me, after a mild fail yesterday at a new baguette experiment, I wanted to bake something quick and dessert-ish today, especially after I found (and bought) a used copy of Hensperger's The Art of Quick Breads at Green Apple Books. So I made a loaf and six muffins of Cranberry-Orange Tea Bread, a lightly sweetened batter bread with orange zest, orange juice, cranberries, pecans and spices. It's very yummy.

It's good to branch out (brunch out?). Man does not loave by bread alone.

Try using 'bakers sugar' it's very finely ground granulated sugar. C&H sells it..great for cakes, meringues, it desolves nicely without as much mixing. You can find it in the sugar isle..it's in a pink milk 1/2 gal. wax carton type container..great for baking..or put your regular granulated sugar in a food processor, if you have one. Some even make powdered sugar this way...only in fix would I make my own powdered surgar!

David it turned out fantastic! I used a larger tin because that was all I had, so I knew my cake would not be as high as yours, next time I will adjust the recipe to suit my tin!! I used canned pie apples because my daughter opened a can last night and I didn't want them to waste. I glazed the cake with a cream cheese frosting...YUM! My son couldn't even wait for the glaze to dry LOL

Thanks David for sharing! I also enjoy eating baked goods with fresh fruit. I'll make this later this year during the apple season ;) And thanks for the info about sweet but not too sweet...but there is only 2.5 oz sugar in the cake though? I guess the apple must have contributed to the overall sweetness.

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